now he's here, to stay for the _Semana Santa_."

"What do you mean?" asked Pilar, almost letting fall the guitar on which
she had been playing. "Has--has Lady Monica promised to go with
you--to-morrow?"

"Not at all," said I. "But what she's promised to another man makes it
better that I should go. She's engaged to Carmona."

"I don't believe it," cried Pilar.

"I shouldn't, if anyone but herself had told me."

"She said it?"

"In exactly those words. She said too, that she didn't want to see me
again."

"Oh--oh!" breathed Pilar. "Thank _Heaven_ for that. You frightened me
horribly--just for a moment."

I stared. "And now--"

"Now I know there's some mistake--dreadful, but not too dreadful to clear
up."

I laughed again, as bitterly as I felt this time. "Extraordinary idea!
Because she says she doesn't want to see me, there's a mistake--"

"Of course. Surely you aren't so cold-hearted, so disloyal, so--so _stupid_
as to believe her? But tell me instantly all about it--everything; every
word; every look."

"Easily done," I said, "if it won't bore you all. There were very few of
either; but what there were left nothing to the imagination."

"Imagination indeed!" exclaimed Pilar. "But go on."

So I went on, and she listened to the end without interruption, as did the
two others, who were only men, and therefore had no comments to make upon
such matters.

As I told the wretched story in as few and as bald words as possible,
Pilar sat grave-eyed, tense-lipped as Portia in the Court of Justice
before her turn to plead. When I finished she was silent for a moment, I
thought because, after all, she found herself with nothing to say. But,
when her father in his compassion would have begun some murmur of
consolation, she broke out quickly, "I suppose she _is_ engaged to the
Duke, or she wouldn't have said so."

"Not much doubt of that," I assented.

"Nor _any_ doubt of her real feelings. Poor little girl, I know she's
wishing she could die to-night. Those _devils!_ Yes, I _will_ say it,
Papa. I shall be forgiven, for they _are_. They've told her some hateful
lie, and made her so desperate she was ready to do anything. Why, it's
just come to me; there's only one thing that would make a girl who loves a
man do what she's done."

"What?" I broke in, breathless; for Pilar's fire had flamed into my blood
now, and I waited for her answer as a man waits for an antidote to poison.

"Believing he's in love with s